By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Americans rightly dread Tax Day. Millions scramble to make it to the post office by midnight with reams of paperwork for the Internal Revenue Service. It's an annual ritual that grows more complex each year. The worst part about it is that every hour of every day spent at work is devoted to paying Uncle Sam until April 18, this year's Tax Freedom Day.
Senate Democrats had four years to consider spending and taxing policies that would help our bad economy. Apparently, they ignored their lawful responsibility since 2009 only so that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could avoid exposing that his party has no ideas to avoid our nation going bankrupt.
Washington has given up on fundamental tax reform. That leaves it up to the states to experiment with better ways of funding government operations.
The tax deal President Obama and congressional Republicans struck last week will send government revenue soaring above its historic average, but did nothing to control spending, which remains stubbornly high.
Maryland taxpayers would be hit with the largest federal income-tax increase in the country if Congress fails to pass legislation to avert the looming "fiscal cliff," and the average U.S. family of four would pay an extra $3,200, according to a study by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's office took a swipe at a grass-roots citizens' group over a report claiming people are leaving Maryland for Virginia, beginning a fight in cyberspace between the governor, the citizens' group and an established nonpartisan tax research organization.
When times are tight, people look for potential savings wherever they can. Increasingly, Marylanders living under the oppressive tax regime of Gov. Martin F. O'Malley have realized they can get a better deal by packing their bags and heading for the Old Dominion.
It has been nearly 200 years since Chief Justice John Marshall struck down a Maryland tax with the observation, "The power to tax involves the power to destroy." Many things have changed since 1819, but that truth is not one of them.
When it comes to high state taxes, people vote with their feet. The Tax Foundation's Migration Calculator shows how people have moved state to state between 1993 and 2010, and the amount of adjusted gross income each state gained or lost over the same period.
If any state has had its share of economic problems, it's Michigan. In 2009, battered by a decade of slow growth, recession and the collapse of the auto industry, unemployment soared to more than 14 percent.
President Obama recently proclaimed, "This is not class warfare - it's math." But the math behind a "millionaires' tax" tells a different story.
The spirited competition between Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to bring jobs and businesses to their respective states has moved offshore.
The D.C. Council approved an income-tax increase on the city's highest earners on Tuesday, after a proposal dismissed in the spring was revived during closed-door negotiations and hotly debated by council members returning from summer recess.
When Mayor Vincent C. Gray's budget team sifted through revenue-generating ideas for the coming fiscal year, they placed them in "yes" or "no" piles and let the executive choose among concepts "on the bubble," his budget director said.
Alex Ovechkin's tax preparations could soon be a hat trick of federal, Virginia and new D.C. "jock" taxes for his dazzling performances at the Verizon Center.
